Get Grants!

Get Grants!

This course will teach you how to write grant proposals that stand out and outshine your competitors. Whether you're doing it as a career or simply to obtain funding for your organization, you'll learn the ins and outs of developing successful proposals.

6 Weeks Access / 24 Course Hrs
  • Details
  • Syllabus
  • Requirements
  • Instructor
  • Reviews
$135.00
$135.00
Instructor-Moderated

Details

In this course, you will learn how to develop successful, grant-fundable proposals.

Whether you're interested in writing grant proposals as a career or in obtaining funding for your organization, this course will give you the grant-writing skills you need to outshine your competition. Highly recommended for development professionals, educators, nonprofit agency staff members or volunteers, and anyone else involved in fundraising for a large or small organization.

While the skills you'll learn during this course are transferable, keep in mind that the focus of this class is on obtaining grant funding for nonprofit organizations.

Syllabus

Each year, nonprofit organizations receive billions of dollars from grant-making entities. How can your organization ensure that some of this money comes into your coffers? The goal of Get Grants! is just that, and this lesson will you get started. The first step in getting grants is making sure that you have a fundable project. What's that? You'll find out in this lesson. It will also talk about how to take an idea and develop it into a proposal.

In this lesson, you'll learn the eight parts of a typical grant proposal and find out in what order you should develop them. You'll examine how to create a workable timeline so that you never frantically work on a proposal only to discover that you missed the deadline. The lesson will also go into detail about the first part of the proposal—the introduction, or what you might call your section on bragging rights.

This lesson will get to the heart of the proposal: the "why." The need statement is where you convince potential funders that you need their support. But ah, there's a hitch. Funders don't particularly care about things you lack or things that would make you happy. They care about funding projects that address issues or resolve unmet needs that mesh with their priorities. After this lesson, you'll know how to detect a real need and then write a concise, clear, well-documented need statement that makes funding agencies take note.

Goals and objectives clarify precisely what you intend to accomplish and help funders see what they are supporting. In this lesson you'll learn how to write goals that flow from the need statement and objectives that will help to measure your success. More specifically, you'll see how to craft the specific, measurable objectives that grant makers require.

"Evaluation" is a word that you hear a lot in the grant-writing world. It's how you show the grant makers that the outcomes of your project are what they want to support. By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to design evaluations that clearly demonstrate how your outcomes support your goals and the goals of the funding source.

This lesson will talk about methods and activities, which are the things you'll be doing from the moment you receive your funding in order to reach your goal. Planning these steps can be daunting, but you'll see how to create a detailed road map so that you never get lost. By this point, you'll know how to capture all the great ideas that you generate during the grant-writing process, so your project manager will be able to start implementing them right away!

If you're a numbers person, this lesson about the budget will be right up your alley. If you're not, this lesson will demystify the budget process. It will go through each of the budget categories and define the more confusing terms. Best of all, you'll get good models for your budget form and your budget narrative. These will be very helpful, especially when you work on a major grant.

Grant writers frequently overlook these two parts of the proposal, but after this lesson, you'll never make this common mistake. Funders don't always require information about dissemination (publicizing your program) and sustainability (future funding), but both are vital pieces in convincing funders that you will make the most of their investment. This lesson will teach you how you can best present them in your proposal.

Although you're not yet finished with the class, you're at the point of the proposal process where it's time to sum it all up. In this lesson, you'll look at how to handle the summary. The lesson will also talk about letters of inquiry: what they are, when to use them, and how to make them effective. You'll also examine how to make successful first approaches to funding sources.

You've written a great grant; now you need to send it out and get it funded. This lesson will talk about researching funding sources. By the end of this lesson, you'll know who funds government programs and where to get the best information. You'll also know where to find out about private foundations and corporate funding. Finally, you'll come to understand the sometimes arcane language of guidelines and extract the details you need.

What image do you want to present to your funding sources? The tips that you'll receive in this lesson (including ways to assemble and package your grant) will help you present your proposal in the best light. The lesson will review what supporting data you'll need and talk about what you have to do after you've submitted your grant.

This lesson will cover writing style—what works and what doesn't. It will discuss how to ensure that your organization is ready to apply for a grant. It will also talk about grant writing as a career—including what it means to work on retainer and why you should never work on a contingency basis. By the end of this lesson (which is the end of this course), you'll be well-equipped to get out there and get grants!

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.


Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

  • This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

  • PC: Windows 8 or later.
  • Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
  • Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  • Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

  • Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Instructor

Janet Levine

Janet Levine has been involved with grant writing and fund raising since 1988. Prior to starting her consulting company in 2007, she was the Vice President for University Advancement at a public, urban university. Levine has been a fundraiser and administrator at a number of colleges, universities and other non-profit organizations. She holds a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University and a B.A. from Hofstra University.

Bo Morton

Bo Morton has spent the past 15 years as a grant development practitioner. She was the Director of Grants Development and Management at a community college for more than a decade. During her tenure, she secured over $75 million in grants for college programs. Since 2011, her company Linked-to-Grow has assisted nonprofits and educational institutions develop resources via grants from governments, private foundations, multilateral organizations, and other revenue streams.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Reviews

This was one of the most well-crafted and professional courses that I have taken online. Well designed and excellent involvement from the instructors. The writing style was easy to follow, yet very comprehensive in content. I learned a great deal and HIGHLY recommend these instructors.

I enjoyed the course and feel that I now have the basic tools to build upon in my pursuit to mastering the art of grant writing. Your instructions were easy to follow without being too simplistic or elementary. This made the pace of reading each chapter perfect for me.

I found the course to be very relevant to my needs. I learned about things that I would never have been able to find out by myself. I feel now I have the tools to write and apply for grants and be sucessful. I think my organization will profit from this knowledge.

I want to think you for all of the information on grant writing. I've learned much more than expected and I'm planning to put it to good use. I didn't realize how much time, information, and research it would take to complete one grant.

Thank you so much. This really enlightened me and taught me a lot. I now see some ways I can help the organization I am working with. Before, I had no idea what grant writing was about or how to go about getting grants.

This has been a wonderful educational experience. I feel prepared to 'venture into the world of grants' on behalf of the historical organization I represent. Thank you for designing this course and for sharing your expertise in this area.

I appreciate how well organized the course material is. I find that the concepts are clearly and concisely explained. I have printed the lessons and will surely refer to this course material often as I write grant proposals for my organization. Many thanks to both instructors. The course was excellent, and I would surely recommend it to others.

The course is exceptionally well done. The instructors were clear and surprisingly thorough, given the time and space restraints. They were very good at eliciting student participation in discussions and promptly provided extremely thoughtful and helpful responses. The resources provided are excellent and well annotated. Frankly, this is one of the best training workshops I have seen. I highly recommend it.

Exceptionally well done. The instructors were clear and surprisingly thorough given the time and space restraints. They were very good at eliciting student participation in discussions and promptly provided extremely thoughtful and helpful responses. The resources provided are excellent and well annotated. Frankly, this is one of the best training workshops I have seen. I highly recommend it.

Get Grants! was a very useful class and I learned a lot. The most useful part to me was the feedback I received on the different sections and the rewrites that I submitted. I felt encouraged and my work was assessed by the instructor, which made me better at each task. Thanks!

My expectations were high but the course far exceeded my expectations. I found the information, from the material for each lesson to the FAQs and Supplementary Material, to be invaluable. I would not want to pursue grant writing without the preparation this course provided.

Instructor-Moderated Course Code: ggr